philadelphia has been the capital of the united states -- the veterans marched on philadelphia to demand payment. the congress at the time, they asked the local police to support them. they had no local police, of course. after that, they said, this will never happen again. we will have our own territory. the congress will be there. we will control it. if we have to call for help, we will be able to call for it because it is our territory. so they created this place called the district of columbia. the constitution gives congress full control over the district of columbia. what congress has done, this was done in 1973, was to delegate some of its authority to a locally elected government to manage the affairs of the district, with congress retain oversight authority. up until then, we had various forms of government, a government appointed, a mayor appointed by the president, and a city council. at one point, we had appointed units -- they were responsible to the congress, but we in the city had no votes at all. not until 1973 did we get the right to vote for our own local government. th